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Thursday, November 4, 2010

Perquest sells to ADP?

We will see what shakes out, but it looks like Perquest has sold to ADP, and locked the doors to numerous regional sales offices...

76 comments:

I know Perquest closed down as of Thursday Nov 4. But what I don't understand is why has there been no press release about this from either ADP or Perquest. I thought ADP would at least file a 8-k with the SEC. The employees got a big NOTHING but payment through the end of the business day on Nov. 4.

ADP is up to its old tricks...buy out the competition. Amazingly, just a couple months ago, we had a conference call/demo and Tom Sinton, CEO of Perquest, personally assured us that Perquest wasn't for sale and that it wasn't going to be another ProBusiness (Mr. Sinton's previous company that sold out to ADP). Well, anyone who thinks to do business with Mr. Sinton in the future should know that he gave us a bald-faced lie! Seems he didn't learn how to make an "honest" buck when he was young.

It was a friggn joke. I heard they walked into work and it was like "Oh, we are shutting down. We ran out of money." Puhleeze! Here's your pay to the end of the day, please take a box and go. I doubt seriously people will follow this guy again. What I don't understand is why go the all the pomp and circumstance of having a big office and signage on the building only to shut down a few months later.

Perquest did not own the software, they only owned the frontends and integrations. The backend was licensed from other companies, so they could not sell the software.

ADP does not want to support multiple systems, so they will just roll everyone to one of their systems (likely PayXpert).

ADP did not buy Perquest just so they would not compete. Perquest ran out of money (their investors cut them off), so they asked ADP to buy them. I think Perquest only had 1000-2000 clients, compared to ADP's nearly 600,000 I don't think they were too worried about Perquest.

As for who is taking care of their clients, ADP currently will be. I am sure Perquest has some operations staff to handle payrolls while the transition happens, which might take up to 6 months.

If you want Perquest software and service, you likely won't be happy with ADP (you likely came from ADP or Ceridian). You might look at Execupay, Paycom or Paylocity. They are similar to Perquest and are in the same markets.

To the poster about Tom Sinton: I actually heard that Tom gave it everything he got. It was not his choice to close the business down. It was the greedy investors who decided that they could not even wait any longer to get their money. Even though they are already billionaires and was already taking a cut of the "profits" before there was even any. I even heard that the investors set very unattainable revenue goals per year to make sure that it was not reached so the business would fail ie. 35 million in revenue a year specially when the highest ever closed so far was about a quarter million.

I am not the poster that commented about Tom Sinton, but I will have to counter a few points you have made.

Now I do believe Tom did not want to close the business, but it was clearly run into the ground.

1) For a company of that size (less than $5 million at the time) to take on over $40 million in venture capital is rediculous. The revenue goals set by investers would have to be just as outrageous, so of course they could not be met. But it should have been expected taking on over 10 times of current annual revenue in VC $.

2) The spending was also outrageous. 38,000 sqft of office space for 75 employees in northern CA, really? They had 2 separate office spaces in Dallas, one for sales and one for IT. Most the employees had unusually high salaries. It looked like the Dot Bomb era all over again.

3) They also took on too many sales reps at one time, nearly 60 at once (or in a very short time).

These mistakes are unforgivably for someone as business savvy and experienced as Sinton.

I doubt most of the employees had high salaries. I know a few that work there and most of them do not have outrageously high salaries. Most actually can barely scrape by and this layoff is hurting them tremendously. They need a lot of sales people to generate enough sales to reach the outrageous goals put on by the investors. It's my understanding that the investors wouldn't even let them hire any extra help. To my way of thinking that's really setting one up for failure. How can you expect sales to bring in all that revenue and then turn down the extra help that can help you meet those goals. It just basically means that operations would have to work themselves into the hospital to set this companies up.

Regardless of what management did, they shouldn't have just handed their people a day's pay, no severance or benefits and then say "Okay well thanks. Now, good luck finding a job during the holidays." That's poor form to say the least.

Is there any independent confirmation of Perquest closing down? I've seen nothing in the press about it. Is this infomation coming from employees who were laid off? Have any of you who are posting heard this directly from a Perquest employee?

I really don't think management would just kick out the employees like they don't matter. From what I heard everything is being decided by the restructuring firm that got brought in by the investors to close Perquest down. They are the ones that are making the decisions around there now. They are the ones that decided not to pay anyone severance or anything.

So yes it's a small industry but before we blame management how about we realize that there are other other outside forces in involved too and that they are at fault too if not more or fully.

Interesting feedback from everyone. I have a comment based on one of the earlier posts with regards to whether ADP was purchasing Perquest’s software or clients. I am a Perquest client and it’s my understanding that, just as someone else had mentioned, Perquest took three systems, one for PR, one for HR and one for T&A and built the integration points between the three. I spoke with our Account Manager early on in our evaluation and he was very open and honest and told us that the Payroll engine was a Millennium system, Time and Attendance was from NovaTime and the HR Module was licensed from SPECTRUM Human Resource Systems. All three systems were rebranded to give the look and feel of a single solution. Therefore, if you were a Perquest client and liked your PR or T&A or HR, you could probably contact a local Millennium reseller, NovaTime or SPECTRUM and I’m sure they’d love to have you as a client. That is what we plan on doing.

A: "You should have gotten a letter in the mail, it would have arrived on Monday. The rumor is true. ADP bought our client list. Perquest will handle the account for 90 days and then you have the option of moving over to ADP. Their sales people will be coming by to visit you...."

It seems to me in this day of identity theft and fraud. If you are company that handles payroll and access to SSN#, you'd really want to be front and center on the state of your business, the fidelity of information you have been entrusted. Just for legal reasons, you wouldn't want a rumor mill circulating about whether you are open or closed for business. I imagine the clients must not be very pleased.

We have many friends at Perquest so our hearts go out to them and their families during this already tough job market. We are NOVAtime's largest provider on the west coast in business for over 20 years and we're currently helping quite a few clients with their transition to NOVAtime. We've compared the features just to make sure changes were not made to the application and it looks like the transition would be clean. Please call or visit us at www.pactime.com and we'll help you get started. Best Wishes everyone

It is not a rumor to the clients. We have already gotten our letter stating perquest will be open for 90 days we have the option to convert to ADP within 90 days. Setup is waived and prices will stay the same, for at least a year. I can hardly control my excitement, since I just left ADP 2 months ago.

I had converted a client to Perquest in Jan this year, but it was a disaster. I switched to Paylocity instead, same functionality but better pricing and system...and also growing instead of shrinking client base. I love working with Brad Flipse there. bflipse@paylocity.com is his contact info.

Paylocity has a quarter of the functionality the Perquest system had (we looked at both of them earlier this year) if you want a true HCMS product, check out what the folks at Ultimate Software (Ultipro), Ceridian, and Execupay are doing. We are in the RFP process and are looking at all three vendors for a Jan. conversion.

It seems the 90 day window of servicing accounts, as stated in the letter, is false OR ADP is using less than honest sales tactics to convert customers. The ADP Rep that came to my office last Thursday told me that Perquest would not be processing payroll after Nov 30.

pactime.com; NOVAtime integrates with over 300 payroll services leaving you with a a stable time & attendance system regardless of payroll company merges etc. You'll always have a multitude of options on the payroll side without the need to consistently retrain employees, sups etc. Let us know if we can help. www.pactime.com

The average tenure of an ADP client is 12 years and the client's that leave for a greener experience come back to ADP with in 2-3 years. Pay roll companies, like Perquest come along and more often than not, GO. If you are a CFO en-trusted with your company's pay roll, do your self, your employees and your board a favor go with ADP.

This whole thing is crazy! There is different information coming from all angles. Who knows what is really going on? If you like the reports and functionality that you were receiving from Perquest,and would like to deal with an honest and accountable payroll services bureau that has been serving the Bay Area for over 20 years (since 1989) give Casey Stratmeyer a call at Payroll Systems. We are locally owned and operated, located in Walnut Creek. I would love an opportunity to help you! CaseyS@Payroll-US.com or 925-939-6214 ask for Casey. Looking forward to talking with you!

This reinforces the idea of thorough due-dilligence when chosing a business partner. Sleek sales presentations and flashy products are great, but obviously not supported or sustainable when the partner you're evaluating doesn't have the proper backing from Operations' standpoint. Perquest was extending ridiculous discounts on their new business proposals the last couple of months (makes me wonder who at Perquest was approving these hefty discounts and if they did, did they know what was brewing?) -- and if you're evaluating a new provider, I hope you're raising your eyebrows at 50%+ discounts on your proposal. No business can sustain such pricing model long term.

I like the concept of "custom" and "personalized service" -- the reality is that it's not profitable in the mid-market space, so any provider that chooses the two as their value prop, will eventually go out of business or simply let their clients down.

"Custom" and "personalized service” are exactly what we provide and we have been doing it for more than 20 years. ADP is very good at what they do but you often feel like a number more than a person with issues that are very important to you.I work for Alliance Payroll Services and we own our web-based service out right. No middleman. Check out our demo www.alliancepayroll.com/allpaydemo/Tony Ware 800-789-7655

For those business owners caught in the middle of recent events concerning Perquest, SurePayroll would like to help. We are offering 3 months free payroll to all former Perquest clients that switch over to SurePayroll. If you’re looking for an alternative to ADP – so you can continue to use a full-service online solution that handles your tax deposits and filings for you – watch our Guided Tour www.surepayroll.com/guidedtour/ or call a payroll specialists at 877.954.7873.

About SurePayroll - We are the first and largest full service online payroll provider with over 10 years of experience and client base of over 30,000 clients across all 50 states.

We empathize with Perquest clients surprised by the sudden changes. The reality is that there are many viable payroll vendors out there that have been in business for many years, have not taken venture money and do a far better job than ADP or other large national vendors. IDEX has been using Payroll Resource Group in San Francisco since 1994. We have a complex multi-state payroll structure and PRG has always professionally handled paying our employees, supporting our GL feeds, custom reporting, tax filing and other HR needs.

First off Tom never wanted to sell. Unfortunately although he was the CEO he didn't have any say in selling. The investors and his partner wanted to sell instead of raising a lot of money over the next 3 years. Believe me I personally know Tom was unhappy about it.

That said as a growing company they did it wrong. They overpaid employees and tried to "buy" an "HR/Payroll" dream team with promises of going public, high salaries, and big sign on bonuses. Many were mislead. They had a great product and great people along with a great service model but it was the investors that decided to get out. ADP didnt need the clients...we had 2000...they didnt need the technology (although it was awesome)...they needed nothing from the company. ADP approached Perquest and decided to make an big offer to get rid of us.

WHy?

Tom Sinton grew Pro business into the 4th largest payroll company in the US. It ended up costing ADP close to 500 Mil to buy it and the only reason TOm sold it was because he felt that ADP's 1.3 billion revenue stream could improve the customer experience. ADP decided to do nothing and failed to live up to Toms expectations of the sale.

ADP saw that Perquest was becoming a neusance. We were winning deals and alot of them in the mid market. We were taking deals from ADP and winning deals over Ultimate. Our technology and product was unmatched. However, ADP saw an opportunity with investors that were worried about a down economy, competetition popping up, and a huge risk of investing a large chunk of change on a risk. The investors decided to get out and take a small profit instead of believing in what we were doing.

The way they did it was terrible. I happened to put the pieces together about 3 weeks before it happened but many didnt. The rumors really started on a monday and on thursday they had a conference call saying "today is your last day get your stuff, no severence, sorry". The way they hung us out to dry had nothing to do with Tom or Perquest or even ADP. It would be up to the investors to pay severences and they didnt as most greedy billionarres dont. Most of us have been heavily recruited by other big companies and are better off. I do want to clear Tom Sinton's name from this. He is a good, honest, genuine man that cares more about customer happiness than revenue. He was the most down to earth, humble, intelligent CEO I have ever worked for and if it were his choice this would not have happened.

To the last poster. That was spoken like a true person who will not have to worry about what he or she is going to eat over Thanksgiving or Christmas. These people were let go with three days pay. And at most they could get an Unemployment check for 400 dollars to pay their bills. I know people trying to get interviews a day before Thanksgiving. Let's face it, after the past two years most people are not sitting on huge savings accounts. You are lamenting the tattered reputation of a millionaire and billionaires while there are people trying to figure out how to pay the mortgage next month? I think that is why this country is so screwed up - You've got a heartless billionaire sitting on top calling the shots, a millionaire in the middle who doesn't take stand, and the poor working guy or gal on the bottom who is saying 'what the hell just happened?' At the rate we are going, my prediction is the Chinese will move all of their factories over here and we -Americans- will be working for them at $2/hr making their tennis shoes and salad spinners.

This entire chain is interesting including the payroll sales reps that are inserting their sales credentials to get some new business. I find it interesting that the person who recruited the talent, updated the board and helped with the sale of the company is not mentioned in the entire blog. Tom was the CEO, but he gave the power to someone else to call the shots.

I was a Perquest client; today, we are moving quickly to locate a replacement and have met with several companies over these past two weeks. (Perhaps I should consider moving from HR to sales....just kidding!) Please...if there is anyone out there who can assist, I would greatly appreciate your insight regarding the following: Paylocity Vs. Paycom

Anonymous, I can help you. My name is Mike Garcia, District Sales Director for Execupay, Inc. We are currently helping quite a few Perquest clients who need to make a switch. We have brougt on a great deal of clients from both Paycom and Paylocity...our application is much more robust, especially from an HRIS standpoint and Time and Labor standpoint. Give me a call and i'll be happy to assist: 214.954.4444 or you can email me at michael.garcia@execupay.com.

There are plenty of other companies out there offering great, cost effective payroll & HR services. Accuchex has been serving the Bay Area and beyond for more that 20 years. They were awarded Best Places To Work for the last three consecutive years, and awarded the Family Friendly Business of The Year 2010. The web-based application called Time2Pay has similar but enhanced capabilitites compared to Millinium. Keep your money in California, stay local and try Accuchex. BTW: I'm not a sales rep.

Perquest seemed to be an excellent product. Sal grigola and I spent 3 hours with thjem at the HR Technology show in Chicago and liked all of what we saw. That sid for 19 years we have sold and implemeneted the Abra HRMS system from Sage. We have clients with over 4,000 employees and some with fewer than 75.

We provide an integrated payroll, HR, T&A and recruitment system with employee and manager self service. Client have the choice of running their system in house wit ESS/MSS or having entire system run over the web.

Our chost of ownership is low and you own your data and the perpetual license to use the software. Tax filing is a low cost option.

we wish the ex Perquest employees well and ask any firm wishing to see a value leader from a 4 billion dollar organization to contact HRpayroll.com or 800-227-2729 (1-800-ABRA-PAY)

My company represents Mangrove's Workforce Empowerment, Mangrove can accommodate companies with a wide range of employees, our smallest is 15 employees and our largest is 33,000.

If you would like to learn more about Workforce Empowerment please contact me at Sales@mcgnow.com or (866) 341-5001 ext 3003, please mention that you are a current Perquest client when contacting me for a special incentive!

So Perquest hired me after I left ADP and made all kinds of great promises. I told them I might have had a non compete with ADP and they told me no problem. 3 months into my employment a friend of mine at ADP called me to say they were coming after me. I informed Perquest and was fired 2 days later. I'm really sad to see them sink..........

To the poster who posted on Dec 10th @ 8:47am:Yeah, I'm sure you're real "sad" that Perquest is in the tubes. Why don't you just blame Perquest for your incompetence and greed or whatever you want to call it. So you might have had a non compete clause with ADP, just because a company says, no problem, you jump on it without checking for sure? That you're own fault!!! That's basically like you telling someone that if I jump off that bridge it will hurt and they say no problem you will be fine, and you freaking jump without finding out the truth. You deserved to have ADP come after you.

I know some sales people that were with ADP and left to go with Perquest and never got into trouble. You must have done something awful to get a non compete clause in your contract. Maybe you were one of those sleazy salesperson who went to ADP and worked with them for awhile while you still worked with your old company and illegally took clients over. Or maybe you did that to ADP and that's why they are coming after you

I however feel sorry for all those employees that are now without a job in this tough economy.

Payroll "Dream Team"?Many including the head HR, IT, and Print&Wrap folks were former ADP ProBusiness "dreamers" who missed out on the ProBusiness dot-com cash machine going public and thought history would repeat with Tom at Perquest. Most of those "Dreamers" left good jobs to take a gamble on Perquest. They LOST!!

Maybe you should be the one to wake up and get your facts straight. Before you start quoting about those "dreamers" who came after Tom cashed out with ProBusiness. A lot of those people were with him before the cash out and decides to go with him again after hoping to make something again.

While everyone keeps bemoaning about how "sucky" Perquest is and blah blah blah they deserved it etc.....do you all not realize the effect that this had on all the implementation team and the account managers etc. The core of the customer service area? These people are all or will be out of job soon. These people all have to find a job that is very rare in this economy now. Most aren't hiring right now and so they all now have to wonder how they are going to support their families. Some are one income households.

So how about instead of blasting Perquest and making assumptions that everyone makes tons of money, that everyone deserves what happened to them, that you were a sales person who was "wronged", consider that before you make any harsh judgements, please consider all the "underlings" that are affected by this. Think on how you would feel if you were in this position and you read somewhere that someone is saying you deserved this, that all the employers deserved this......NO. No one deserved this happening to them especially during the holidays. So Perquest made a mistake in managing things, they still don't deserve all the anamosity. Everything will and is always base on trial and error. They tried, they tried to please everyone, they tried to get the clients, they tried to make a great product, they tried to appease the board, they tried! Unfortunately this one time, they failed.

I remember working for Tom back in the day. Then I got an offer I couldn't refuse across the bay was good for a while as my twins were young. Happier now as a owner of a local store here in Danville. Too bad about PerQuest as I knew some good people there and yes some don't have two cents to rub together and even less common sense but they are people right?!

I laugh at the posts who say to stay with ADP. Anyone who knows ADP product knows they are not like Tom Sinton's great customer service companies like ProBusiness and Perquest. I was part of those Payroll Dream Teams of Tom and I was not dreaming when I quit ADP to join Perquest several years ago. Although my stock never paid off I did draw a nice salary and worked with nice people. Moving to Dublin was great but our Oakland office was ok too as we had BART right next door. I would not say like another poster that I "lost" because at ADP gave me very little stock and then Tom offered my 1000x that amount. We were so close to going public!! I still think I am a winner not loser! You can find me on LinkedIn if you want more details.

To the poster who posted on 1/12 at 10:56pm. I agree with the winner part. I started working at Perquest two years ago and made the transition from a very stable big payroll company for almost 10 years to take a chance to work with a start up because of the fact that Tom was running this company. I knew how the atmosphere was at Pro, it was a very team oriented environment where your opinions on improving processes, great client services, etc was the driving force to success unlike at other bigger payroll companies like Adp, Paychex, Ceridian, etc.

I've talked to several former clients of Perquest that have been transitioned to ADP for the time being and to say that they are already having issues are an understatement. One client was pissed already before she even had her first cheek run with ADP because they were already trying to blame her for mistakes they made. One client called Perquest to find out the truth on why they were going with ADP. Seems ADP told them that it was because they had over 50 employees and were considered too big for Perquest now.....Really?!? Because last I checked before the downfall, Perquest had clients that had employees well over 800 employees.....too big? Huh.....then he found out that actually it was because Perquest was going out of business. I've heard from former clients who state that ADP was trying to strong arm them into going with them. Telling them that they have to sign now etc because Perquest will turn off their access immediately etc and this was back in Nov.

And most keep saying that ADP is better and Tom and Perquest is not. Well, I rather work for Tom or be a client to Perquest and then have to leave because the company is closing than rather go with a company like ADP.......

Recommend those interested to view the comments made on "Perquest/ADP Comment Storm". Perquest has formally closed. The old Team is being staged for a return in 2012/2013. Bizzack, Blalock, and Curtis joining Sinton to battle WorkDay for EastBay dominance. Timing is assured as ADP announced the closing of their NorCal Pleasanton region. Many to take the chance as Perquest did to enjoy the stock options while they work.

RJ, your comment that the Paylocity system has 1/4 of the functionality of the Perquest system was completely off base. I am Chairman and Founder of Paylocity. While the Perquest system had a nice-looking front end, the payroll engine it interfaced with was actually the legacy system that we replaced when we wrote WebPay. While most of our competitors, Perquest attempted to interface separate payroll and HR applications, while we have built our system from the ground up to be a single, unified payroll and HR system. Paylocity has twice been named America's #1 independent payroll provider and is currently the largest US payroll provider that is majority owned by its founder. We have tripled in size since 2007 and boast an exceptionally high client retention rate. I would advise you to check your facts more carefully before you post a comment the next time on a public message board.

"The old Team is being staged for a return in 2012/2013. Bizzack, Blalock, and Curtis joining Sinton to battle WorkDay for EastBay dominance . . . Many to take the chance as Perquest did to enjoy the stock options while they work. "

How do you know this? And where on earth will they find employees? As many people here have said, payroll is a small world. Everyone knows now how these people treat their employees, and will stay FAR away from them. Stock options? If you exercise them, then line up behind all the other creditors to get your money back when Sinton grabs the money and runs again.

Anyone who fully understands the details of why Perquest closed should not be blaming Tom Sinton for heaven sakes! Tom was not the original owner but eventually he was selected to run the company. The original owner and developer was David K. who is a honest to god genius formally headed various payroll development projects for overseas customers. The true owners were a group of investors and they were the ones who pulled the funding and closed Perquest. They were also the ones who limited and paid for severance to only select levels of employees and they did not tell the HR VP anything and thats why some employees were unfortunately hired literally days before the actual closure. So saying the no one will work for Tom Sinton ever again is just nonsense as when Tom chooses again he will be the owner this time and with his money and him calling the shots many people will want to join him. Comments about his Oakland home and car are just silly.

Anyone know how to get a hold of anyone from Perquest OR whomever is storing their old records. We are looking for 2010 information and ADP says they know nothing about Perquest and can't help. Any suggestions?

Complaining to the labor board is going to get you nowhere. They did not have to pay out any severance. Those who did get some got lucky. Consolidation is a business fact and there are to many payroll service centers right now. Look at what ADP is doing closing some of the smaller locations like in Washington State, Oregon, and Texas. No one is safe from consolidations.

Can this board get back to discussing payroll opportunities and not dwell in the past????? So what is happening at your place? Where is the hiring? I hear good things from Workday. Paychecks and ADP stock has been up up up.

We are releasing a Payroll module very soon so those interested in WorkDay will be quite happy. Those "(per)Questers interested in applying here in Pleasanton will find their skills of use now that Payroll is bring brought online formally. Contact AA for a good reference.

Former "quester" Amy A was just was promoted to full manager at WorkDay. She was onetime hotshot at ProBusiness who cut the cord with GM Pam D. She has mega payroll experience and is leading the WorkDay charge against the mighty ADP. In other news, WorkDay to offer a total ACH solution by 2013. Will not be offshoring this function as is ADP.

WorkDay expanding in Pleasanton just as ADP in Northwest Region is "streamlining" operations. ADP offshoring call center ops to SE Asia. Many former ProBusiness and PerQuest dev types and PM's being wooed by WorkDay.

I need my Quarterly unemployment records for our workman's comp audit. I was a client of a company who was a client of Perquest and I can't get that report from Perquest or the company we were clients of. Any help locating those 2010 reports would be awesome!

I once worked at Perquest and I met Tom Stinton. I found him to be genuine and honest and caring about the business; even more so for the staff/employees under him. No doubt Tom is extremely intelligent and sharp. If ever Tom decides to start another business albeit smaller, I'll go work for him!

Take a look at the entire management group at Paylocity. They ran a company called Advantage Payroll who sold out to Paychex a few years back. I'm seeing the same thing coming down the line. Nothing like a major build out only to line your pockets when you sell out.

Paylocity is terrible. Horrible customer service people who will give you incorrect answers over and over until you figure out the problem on your own. Flawed system as well, leading to issues with timeliness of reporting and incorrect W2's. Every step of the way they have been terrible. On our 6th customer rep in one year.

Paylocity is as bad or worse than ADP. I would stay away from them. A lot of growth equals poor customer service no follow up and a lot of new people who know very little about payroll. The inexperience is the worst as is the lack of follow-up. We are looking as well as we can no longer trust this company.